Chapter 18
Chapter eighteen
Dante
Sleep will not come.
I’ve been lying on this wretched sofa for hours, staring at the ceiling, listening to the silence of the flat.
The cushions are lumpy and smell faintly of dust. The springs dig into my back in ways that will make tomorrow unpleasant.
I should replace this thing. I’ve been meaning to replace it for years.
But that’s not why I can’t sleep.
My mind keeps drifting back to the kitchen.
To flour-dusted cheeks and nervous rambling and the way Dylan’s voice went high and squeaky when he told me not to look at him.
To the warmth of standing beside him at the counter, close enough to feel the heat radiating off his body.
To his hands moving with practiced confidence through dough, the only time I’ve seen him without that undercurrent of anxiety.
He was beautiful today. Not in the way I noticed when he first arrived, the objective assessment of pleasing features and attractive coloring.
This was something else. Something about the way his whole face changed when he talked about baking.
The way his eyes lit up when the scones came out of the oven.
The pride in his voice when he instructed me on the proper application of cream and jam.
I roll onto my side and punch the flat pillow into a more acceptable shape. It doesn’t help.
The runt scone. That’s what I keep coming back to. That misshapen little thing, smaller than the others, made from the scraps. I claimed it because it looked lonely, I said. We misfits should stick together.
What possessed me to say something like that? I don’t say things like that. I don’t make whimsical observations about baked goods having feelings. I am Dante, the monster in the basement, the man who makes other men scream. I am not the sort of person who adopts the runt scone because it needs me.
Except apparently I am. Apparently Dylan has turned me into someone who says ridiculous things about pastry and means them.
I stare at the water stain on the ceiling and try to remember the last time someone made me laugh.
A real laugh, not the cold, performative thing I sometimes use in my work.
The answer comes back empty. Years, probably.
Maybe longer. Maybe never, not like the sound that escaped me when Dylan described his first scones as weapons that nearly cracked his aunt’s mug.
It wasn’t even that funny. It was a silly little story about failed baking. But something about the way he told it, self-deprecating and warm and completely without guile, loosened something in my chest that I didn’t know was tight.
I press the heels of my hands against my eyes until I see stars.
This is dangerous. I know it’s dangerous. I’ve survived this long by keeping myself separate, contained, untouchable. Emotions are vulnerabilities. Attachments are pressure points. The moment you care about something, you’ve given your enemies a weapon to use against you.
But I can’t seem to stop.
When I close my eyes, I see him. Dylan with flour on his face, looking mortified.
Dylan pressing his hands against his cheeks and smearing white powder everywhere.
Dylan glancing at me over his shoulder with that expression of barely contained panic that somehow manages to be endearing rather than pathetic.
He’s so different from anyone I’ve ever known. So soft and sweet and completely unsuited to the world I inhabit. He should have been destroyed by what I put him through. Should have emerged from that experience hardened, bitter, full of justified hatred.
Instead he’s making me scones and teaching me about the proper temperature of butter.
I don’t understand him. I don’t understand any of this.
The flat is too quiet. Too empty despite the fact that it contains another person for the first time ever. I can hear the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen, the distant rumble of traffic. Normal sounds. Mundane sounds. But underneath them, a silence that feels suffocating.
Is he sleeping? Is he comfortable? Is the pneumonia truly gone, or is it lurking in his lungs waiting to return?
The questions circle through my mind like sharks, relentless and toothy. I tell myself it’s practical concern. He was very ill. Pneumonia can recur if not properly treated. It would be irresponsible not to monitor his recovery.
But that’s not why I’m lying here thinking about him. That’s not why my chest feels tight and my thoughts keep spiraling back to the same moments, the same images, the same inexplicable warmth.
I give up on sleep and swing my legs off the sofa.
The flat is dark, but I know the layout well enough to navigate without light. My feet are silent on the worn carpet as I move through the living room, past the tiny kitchen where we stood together just hours ago, down the hallway toward the bedroom.
I tell myself I’m just checking on him. Making sure he’s breathing properly. A reasonable precaution given his recent illness.
I don’t examine the lie too closely.
The bedroom door is slightly ajar. I left it that way deliberately, so I could hear if he called out in the night. So I could respond quickly if something went wrong. Perfectly logical. Perfectly sensible.
I push it open just enough to slip through and stop a few feet inside.
Moonlight filters through the gaps in the metal shutters, painting stripes of silver across the bed.
Dylan is curled on his side, one hand tucked under his cheek, the blankets pulled up to his chin.
His strawberry-blond hair is a mess against the pillow, catching the dim light and turning it to copper.
He looks peaceful. Young. The tension that usually defines his features has melted away in sleep, leaving behind something soft and unguarded.
I watch him breathe. The steady rise and fall of his chest. The small movements of his eyes behind closed lids, suggesting dreams I’ll never know about. The way his lips are slightly parted, soft and pink and vulnerable.
A proper person would leave. Would check that he’s breathing, confirm that he’s resting comfortably, and return to the horrible sofa. A proper person would not stand here in the dark like some sort of specter, cataloging the details of another man’s sleeping face.
I am not, it seems, a proper person.
But I’ve long known that about myself. So I just stand here, watching, my breath carefully controlled so as not to disturb him. The silence wraps around us both like a blanket. Intimate. Almost sacred.
When did this happen? When did checking on a prisoner become something else entirely? When did practical concern transform into whatever this is, this ache in my chest, this need to be near him even when he’s unconscious?
I try to trace it back, to find the moment when everything shifted.
Was it when he fainted at the mere sight of my pliers, proving himself too soft for the world I thought he belonged to?
Was it when I discovered the truth, when Declan’s video message shattered my certainty and left me drowning in guilt?
Was it when I climbed into bed beside his frozen body and held him through the night, feeling his heart beat against my chest?
Or was it later? Was it the first time he said thank you and meant it? The first time he didn’t flinch when our hands brushed? The first time he smiled at me like I was a person instead of a monster?
I don’t know. I can’t pinpoint it. All I know is that something has taken root inside me, something I don’t have a name for, something that grows stronger every day.
He shifts in his sleep, murmuring something I can’t make out. For a moment I freeze, certain he’s about to wake and find me looming over his bed like some creature from a nightmare. But he just sighs and settles deeper into the pillows, his expression smoothing back into peaceful oblivion.
My lungs remember how to work.
I should leave. I know I should leave. Standing here watching him sleep is not normal behavior. It’s not the behavior of a man trying to make amends for past wrongs. It’s the behavior of something else entirely. Something darker. Something that wants and hungers and refuses to let go.
I’ve watched him sleep before, when he was ill and every breath came with a rattle. I watched him for hours. In fact, it’s possible I’ve seen far more of Dylan unconscious than awake.
But this is different, I know it is. I know better. This is creepy. Stalker behavior. I should go. Walk away and allow the poor man to sleep in peace.
But I don’t leave. I can’t seem to make my feet move toward the door.
Instead, I find myself cataloging details like evidence. The exact shade of his hair in the moonlight. The fan of his lashes against his cheeks. The small freckle just below his left ear that I’ve never noticed before. The way his fingers curl against the pillow, relaxed and trusting.
Trusting. He’s trusting enough to sleep deeply with me in the next room. The man who tortured him, who made him watch unspeakable things, who held his life in careless hands. And he sleeps like a child, unguarded, vulnerable.
Something twists in my chest. Possession, maybe. Or protectiveness. Or something between the two that has no name.
I think about the justifications I’ve been telling myself.
That I’m keeping him because I can’t let him go.
Because he knows too much. Because releasing him would be dangerous for us both.
All true, all logical, all perfectly reasonable explanations for why Dylan O’Shea is still sleeping in my bed instead of returning to his bakery and his aunt, and his normal life.
But standing here in the dark, watching him breathe, I can no longer pretend those are the real reasons.
The truth is simpler. Uglier. More honest than I’ve allowed myself to be.
I want to keep him.